Short Film Teaches Talmud

by Ezra Reichman, VIN News

Jerusalem – Nitzotzos shel Kedusha is the name of a multimedia Hebrew-language company that attempts to provide healthy, educational entertainment for religious children.

In the past, the company has produced several genre of films including musicals, adventure, nature, parshas hashavua and documentaries that are suitable for the religious public. The popular films included “Every Jew is Gold”, “The Cantonists Decree”, “Elisha Baal Kanafayim” “A Treasury of Parables”, “Mitzvos Train”, etc. The company has over 80 films under its belt, which can be accessed and viewed at its www.nitzotzotonline.com web site.

Now the company has come up with a new multimedia idea whose goal is to facilitate the learning of gemora. Yigal Hushier, the general director and a Chabad chosid, says that the series is not only for the religious, but anyone who wants to learn gemora including children, baalei tshuva and curiosity-seekers.

The film attempts to convert the gemora sugya into real-life situations that takes place in both ancient and contemporary times, bringing the topics to life and making them more relevant. His hope is it will deepen the learning experience for those who are studying the gemora text.

“Anyone who watches the film will know how to behave in certain situations,” Hushier said. “If he finds a lost item, he’ll know how to deal with it and if he has to return it or not.”

The first of the series is on the first chapter of “Hamafkid”. In the film, one of the students discovers that in order to return a DVD stolen from a store, he must return it and notify that owner that the device had been returned. The film has been reviewed and approved by educators.

Hushier said that he feels a strong sense of responsibility for the new series, which requires a high level of accuracy and research. During one scene, when he realized that one word of the script was unclear, he stopped filming for close to two hours until he was able to arrive at a solution.

“This is pivotal to us,” Hushier said. “We can’t make the slightest mistake. It is of utmost important that what we say be exact, because this might affect the rest of the viewer’s life.”

Hushier says that he writes the scripts of the films together with his wife. They allow for some “violence” in their films for excitement and to make clear who are the bad guys, but generally keep it at a minimum. “We have enough what to sell without that,” he explains. Slang is avoided in the films, and religious individuals dressed in religious style are portrayed positively,.

Hushier believes that teaching gemora through visual means is another stage leading to the Final Geula, about which it was written that “studying would be done visually.” He hopes that his films will become popular with Talmudei Torah.

“The visual media which heaven has given us is so we can transmit holy knowledge in the most concrete manner possible,” Hushier believes.